June 27, 2011

Dear Faculty, Staff, and
Students:

College Updates

Friday night we
celebrated and honored the accomplishments of 28 interns and residents at an
annual dinner and recognition ceremony. Besides being indispensable to the
clinical operations of the VMC, we also recognize the critical role of our
house officers in the education and training of our DVM students. We thank them
for all they have done for our college and wish these interns and residents
well as they go on to the next stage of their career.

We have kicked
off our Summer Research Program. This summer's class – 48 students - is the
largest student research program in the
country. Students are engaged in projects that include cancer and retrovirus
research, clinical studies, wildlife and conservation medicine, and more. Some
of our students will be traveling to Cameroon, Thailand, Ethiopia, and
Nepal. Others will be working here in laboratories and traveling to farms
across the state of Ohio. Students will participate in weekly brown bag
discussions, go on field trips, and many will travel to the University of
Florida for the Merial/NIH National Symposium. http://vet.osu.edu/research/veterinary-scholar-summer-research-program

Last week, our college hosted
66 candidates for the board-certification examination for the American College
of Veterinary Preventive Medicine. We thank to Dr. Gary Bowman, associate
professor in Veterinary Preventive Medicine, for his work organizing this
two-day event for the past several years. It provides recognition for Ohio
State to be able to host the exam, and we appreciate Dr. Bowman's effort to make
it possible.

Dr. Wondwossen Gebreyes,
associate professor in Veterinary Preventive Medicine, is making great strides
organizing the first International Congress on Pathogens at the Human-Animal
Interface (ICOPHAI), which is being held at the United Nations Conference
Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 15-17. Last week, we had the
opportunity to speak with His Excellency Girma Woldegiorgis, president of the
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, about the event. He has agreed to
speak at the event, and welcome all guests to the congress and host a reception
for attendees. It was an honor to speak with him, and we are proud of Dr.
Gebreyes for making such important connections, which will help ensure success
for this important event. Several Ohio State leaders will be speaking at the
congress, and deadline for abstract submission is June 30. More information is
available at: http://icophai2011.org/

Campus Updates and Partnerships

The deans of the seven
health sciences colleges are continuing to work together to find areas for
collaboration. We met recently with Christine Poon, dean of the Fisher College
of Business to discuss inter-professional training opportunities. We are
particularly interested in adding business competencies to enhance skills for
our students, in addition to their proficiency in the technical skills. We may
have an opportunity to share some of this business training across the health
science colleges.

Off-Campus Partnerships

A group recently met with alumnus Colonel Don Noah,
deputy commander of the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at
Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. Department of Veterinary
Preventive Medicine Chair Bill Saville and faculty members Drs. Wondwossen
Gebreyes, Tom Wittum, and Armando Hoet discussed areas of collaboration with
Dr. Noah. He called their new facility near Dayton the "largest DOD building
project since World War II." We are fortunate to have an alumnus in such a prestigious
position, and such a state-of-the-art facility so close to our campus. We look
forward to continuing discussions of shared projects and goals.

We attended the recent
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's annual fundraising event, "Zoofari." We have a
great relationship with zoo veterinarians, and our students enjoy many
opportunities to learn more about zoo and other exotic wildlife through our
partnerships with them. Attending events such as these offers an important
demonstration of our support.

State and National Issues

The National Bio-surveillance
Advisory Subcommittee has released its final report. I was a member of the
committee, which provided advice and recommendations to assess and define
bio-surveillance efforts in the context of detecting and mitigating
health-related threats. For the first time, recommendations have been
incorporated that create a new national strategy requiring surveillance of food
animals and food animal products as part of the traditional human health
surveillance system in the U.S. This will allow detection of numerous threats
that can harm people, and are not obvious in the current surveillance system
that only looks at people. For example, the earlier detection of emerging
zoonotic diseases will provide greater ability to prevent the spread of
diseases and mitigate harmful effects in humans.

The U.S. Northern Command,
which provides command and control of Department of
Defense (DOD) homeland defense efforts, recently held a One Health conference.
I provided a keynote address, "One Health: A New Paradigm to Addressing
Emerging Infectious Diseases." Our military takes threats of emerging diseases
very seriously, and are examining detection, spread, and mitigation of
infectious diseases that could erode military effectiveness.

Alumni and Fundraising

We recently hosted a reception to thank the Midmark
Corporation for their generous support of our new dental suite. Faculty, staff,
and students in our VMC and Community Practice Service welcomed Dr. Anne
Klamar, CEO, and Dr. Rob Klamar, along with representatives from Midmark's
Animal Health Division: Mike Walker, vice president; Matt Bourne,director
of sales; and Pete Wenning, regional sales representative. We are proud to have
built an excellent relationship that led to their generous gift. Dental
services are often under-utilized as an essential service for companion
animals, and this new equipment will enable our Community Practice Service to
provide more services to our patients. In addition, our students will benefit
from being trained on this state-of-the-art equipment.

Drs. John Hubbell, Rustin
Moore, Danielle Ford and I attended an event in Lexington, Kentucky. This is
part of our on-going effort to re-connect with alumni from our college. I want
to thank Danielle Ford, development officer, for her assistance in planning
this event, as well as Dr. Steve Reed, an alumnus of our college and former
faculty member in the Galbreath Equine Center. The event was held at Darby Dan
Farms, owned by Beth and John Phillips, grandson of John Galbreath, (for whom
the Galbreath Equine Center is named). We have many alumni connections in the
Lexington area, and many friends of the college who are associated with the
Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital and other equine specialty practices in the
Lexington area. We look forward to working with them more closely in the
future.